While all national attention is focused  indeed riveted  on the seven to nine swing or battleground states, a major shift is taking place in the rest of the country: Voters are turning off Obama and onto Romney.

In the forty states where the Obama campaign has not spread toxic negative ads against Romney, the Republican is gaining by leaps and bounds and will likely carry a bunch of non-swing normally blue states. Specifically, Romney is now three points ahead in Pennsylvania, one point behind in Michigan, and only two points behind in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Together, these four states have a cache of 56 electoral votes and are the tail that may wag the dog on November 6th.

While Romney looks to be solidly ahead in Florida, Virginia, Iowa and Colorado, the race in Nevada, Ohio, and New Hampshire continues to be nip and tuck with the two candidates tied or within a point of one another.

Enter the Romney flank attack, circling around these battleground states to attack the soft underbelly of undefended Democratic states.

Indeed, the situation is so fluid in the Democratic states that there is increasing evidence that several blue bastions states are borderline in play with Obama under 50% of the vote. In New Jersey, Neighborhood Research has Obama up by only 48-41. In Oregon, Survey USA has the president leading by only 49-42.

With the undecided vote likely to go overwhelmingly against the president, we may see some strange states turning red on Election Day.

While I still believe, Romney will carry Ohio, New Hampshire, and Nevada; he may do even better in Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Wont that be a kick?

no good for us to use words like blow out. Sometimes people hear blowout and say “I don’t need to vote , it’s a blowout”. need to always run like your 20 points behind. Don’t leave anything on the table.

I take everything Morris says with a grain of salt, and I suspect he’s cherry picking his polls a bit on PA and MI. That said, he may well be right this time. The magnitude of Romney’s 1st debate win just keeps having a ripple effect on the election. I’m taking nothing for granted until I hear Obama’s concession speech on election night, but a big win leading to an early one would be awfully nice. :-)

Everyone brings up his prediction of a Clinton vs. Rice election. He obviously overestimated his ability to predict who would run in, not to mention who would win, the primaries in 2008. I think this is different, though. We know who the nominees are. It’s like the difference between trying to predict the Super Bowl winner during the preseason and picking the winner after the conference champions are determined.

Most voters see themselves confronted with one choice: vote for the nominee of their party or stay home. This dichotomy means that the candidate with momentum tends to triumph.

There are, of course, other choices, one can vote for a third-party candidate and one can jump parties. These two choices are relatively trivial in terms of numbers compared to the first choice above but they too tend to favor the candidate with momentum.

This is the genius of the two-party system, it makes for a clear yes or no choice. In a parliamentary system such as seen in most European countries, there are viable third choices. But our two-party system forces the voter down a narrow road with but one fork. This has certain advantages for the voter, the majority can make clear its pleasure or more likely its displeasure with the governing party and that generates an active opposition which, contrary to handwringing "moderates," is a very healthy condition for a democracy.

It has, alas, certain advantages for the governing elitists, it permits them to cynically craft a bare majority through demagoguery. In other words, if you can cobble together enough voting blocs by appealing to their selfish interests as the Democrats are so artful at contriving, one can obtain power. The voter is limited to an overall approval-disapproval vote and so collateral issues do not get litigated but are largely subsumed in American national elections. This strategy works optimally when there is no overriding issue preoccupying the electorate.

This is especially true in an election environment in which we find ourselves today. There is but one overriding issue in this election, the economy and jobs. All other considerations fall by the wayside by comparison. This works greatly to the advantage of the challenger and greatly to the disadvantage of an incumbent when the economic numbers are as dismal as they are today.

So when the voter goes into the booth who is not already made his choice to stay home, he must decide between approving or disapproving those dismal economic numbers. Obama has tried many stratagems to divert the voter from this choice. He has tried to demagogue Romney, he has tried to frighten women about reproductive rights, he has tried to inflame class warfare, and tonight, no doubt, he will try to paint Romney as a warmonger. Each of these tactics has failed because they are up against strategic realities. The strategic reality is the approval or disapproval of the economy and to offer free birth control pills by comparison is a trivial, indeed pitiful, tactic.

I doubt whether Obama will have much success tonight painting Romney as a warmonger and for the same reasons.

I believe the strategical impulse supports Romney's campaign and Dick Morris has at least the general trend right.

The big question is how does this impact the Senate races. There are senate races in many of the states mentioned like WI, PA, NV and AZ that we need to pick up if we want to take over the senate. RCP has ten states as toss ups. AZ: Open (R) CT: Open (D) IN: Open (R) MA: Brown (R) MO: McCaskill (D) MT: Tester (D) NV: Heller (R) ND: Open (D) VA: Open (D) WI: Open (D)

They also have three Likely Dem seats that could be vulnerable in a GOP landslide year. FL: Nelson (D) OH: Brown (D) PA: Casey (D)

We need to pick up 7 of the 13, and Ryan as the VP, to pick up the Senate. Right now looking only at Rasmussen or other reliable polls It looks like we have a good shot at 6 IN, AZ, MT, NV, ND, and WI even without a GOP surge. Does a big Romney win have enough coat tails to bring along one more.

20
posted on 10/22/2012 1:08:34 PM PDT
by GonzoGOP
(There are millions of paranoid people in the world and they are all out to get me.)

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